


apples out of season

by mysticalmuddle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brief knifeplay, Cousin Incest, Drunk Sex, F/M, Getting Together, Humor, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior, R Plus L Equals J, Teasing, tipsy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:54:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticalmuddle/pseuds/mysticalmuddle
Summary: Arya doesn’t know how to use her words. Jon doesn’t know how to keep his eyes to himself. Both of them aren’t enjoying their visit to the Vale until suddenly they are.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 61
Kudos: 217





	apples out of season

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure the Royces are actually very nice people...

> When Adam won Eve's hand  
>  He wouldn't stand  
>  For teasin'  
>  He didn't care about  
>  Those apples out of season!  
>  —Cole Porter, _Let’s Misbehave_

* * *

The froth of petticoats wasn’t any easier to manage now than it had been before when two overly eager lady’s maids had stuffed her into them like so much bread into a goose’s ass. They had about a hundred tiny fasteners apiece, all of them hidden under the dress itself, the dress she couldn’t get off. Arya shook her skirts out, huffing in disgust, and considered just sleeping like that in them. She’d certainly be warm enough not to need the blankets.  
  
She wasn’t expecting the knock on the door. “Just a moment,” she called, still fighting the buttons down her back. Her fingertips barely scraped the smooth pearl buttons and the holes were too almost too small to find by touch.  
  
“Seven hells,” she grumbled, giving up, and strode across the room to fling the door open wide.  
  
Jon was standing there holding two battered wooden cups and a flagon. He raised his eyebrows at her.  
  
“Oh,” Arya said blankly. “It’s you.”  
  
Jon usually shared some time with her in the evening; she’d practically colonized his hearth rug. But last she had seen of him he’d been chased out of the hall by Lord Royce, both of them wearing harried uncomfortable looks.  
  
Lord Royce was certainly good at making people uncomfortable, Arya thought sourly.  
  
“Don’t tell me that our host has gotten to you too,” Jon said and nodded past her to the room where her things were thrown about in a sulk.  
  
Arya snorted. “Oh I’m so sorry,” she said and batted her lashes at him, a cloying mockery of another Royce. “Did you want a warmer welcome? Pray give me but a moment to put on my newest mask. Lady Stark Is Not Thinking of Poisoning You, I like to call it.”  
  
Jon barked a laugh. “Aye, he’s had words with you too. Let me in then,” he said and waggled the flagon at her. “I’ve got a fine cure for what ails you.”  
  
“Wine?” she asked with some disgust. She could tolerate a sour Dornish red but everyone in the Eyrie seemed to favor overly sweet whites from the Reach.  
  
“Rum,” Jon said staunchly. “Pray don’t ask me what I did to get it.”  
  
The weight of the day dragged on her as heavily as the ridiculous dress. “Gods yes,” Arya said and dragged Jon in with a hand on his arm.  
  
She barred the door; the maids weren’t coming back any time that night and there was not a single other person in this miserable wretched keep she wanted to see.  
  
She had seen far too much of Vale men, all of them intent on speaking to her breasts under the guise of speaking to her, and Vale women, all of whom seemed to think her little better than stable yard muck scraped off their shoes. No, let the rest of them hang, she thought as the heavy oak log fell into place.  
  
The dress puffed up around her like a rising cake as she sat herself in the chair by the dressing table. Jon was busy pouring a generous amount for them both, the corner of his mouth curled up. Arya took her cup gratefully when he offered it to her and she drank deep.  
  
“Ah, it’s to be a night like that then,” Jon said.  
  
It was already a night like that. It had been a night like that since Arya had let herself be escorted into the largest hall in the Gates of the Moon and had to drag Albar Royce’s face out of her tits before she was taken to her seat. She made a sour face.  
  
Jon saw it and snorted. He kicked out the chair from the writing desk, a piece charmingly carved to make it look like it was made of vines, and sat in it.  
  
Like everything else in the Vale Jon’s chair was not intended for someone with a Northron disposition; it creaked with some alarm as it took his weight and Jon looked down, holding himself perfectly still.  
  
“T’would be a fine end to the night if I fell to the floor, cracked my head, and expired,” he said, eyes bright.  
  
Arya looked down into her cup musingly and said, “A finer end than some might have, you included. I ought to tell you what Lord Royce said to me only I don’t think you’ll survive the experience.”  
  
He grinned at her. “He does seem skewed towards the ridiculous tonight. Shall I die of laughter?”  
  
She considered. Lord Royce had been most eloquent on the subject and very unflattering towards her. There had been gestures. “You’ll try to kill him and get thrown off a mountain,” Arya said and downed another burning swallow of rum.  
  
Jon turned his eyes towards her, a suddenly somber look. “No doubt you have the matter under control,” he said and waited for her nod. “Then give me a lead in this,” he told her as he brandished his own cup, “and try again in half an hour.”  
  
“So you can _drunkenly_ try to kill him and get thrown off a mountain?” Arya raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “I think not, Your Grace. Unless your exceptional blood allows you wings of your own?”  
  
“Gods, don’t _Your Grace_ me,” Jon said. He made a face at her and shook his head with mock disappointment. “Turn your displeasure where it belongs, my lady, and remember who brought you this rum.”  
  
More rum was clearly the answer. Arya drank again and made a face back. They hadn’t spiced it enough, whoever had made it, and it tasted horrible going down. “Suppose you robbed a sailor for this,” she mused.  
  
Jon snorted. “Suppose I did,” he said and raised his own cup towards her again. “Shall I tell you mine? Or will we be faced again with Starks down the mountain?”  
  
“You’re the one who never learned subtlety,” Arya said primly. “I will simply put on my second favorite new mask. This one I shall call Lady Stark Has Indeed Poisoned You and Will Now Watch You Die.”  
  
His grin had just enough bared teeth to make her want to squirm. She could see Ghost in it, the easy wolfish belief that Jon was the larger predator, the better predator no matter the company he kept.  
  
It made her stomach warm, her chest. Or perhaps it was the rum. More rum, Arya thought to herself, and I shan’t have to ask that question. She drank.  
  
“Yes, fortify yourself,” Jon said. He leaned back in his chair and spread his legs comfortably. His burned hand lay curled high up on his thigh; Arya glanced at it, then next to it, then forced herself to look away studiously towards the windows.  
  
She cleared her throat and said, “Go on, then. It cannot be as bad as what he said to me.”  
  
“Half an hour,” Jon warned. She turned back to him. He was smirking now, a cocky roguish look Arya wanted to kiss off his face. She controlled her frown at the thought. It had been a long time since Arya’d had rum. A long time since she’d had anything stronger than watered ale.  
  
He was still waiting. She made a little noise in her throat, a sign she heard him.  
  
“Did you see Lord Nestor Royce follow me when I left the hall?” Jon began. He scarcely waiting for her nod; he knew she liked to watch him when he moved among his men. “He wanted words with me, something about his precious little daughter.”  
  
Myranda Royce was a maid—a woman—of seven-and-twenty and there was nothing little about her. Certainly not her tits, which she had spent half the night trying to thrust under Jon’s nose. “Aye,” Arya said shortly.  
  
“Apparently she has found herself some type of trouble,” Jon said and his sly glance was a sweet jape between them. Trouble with Arya meant murder and her sudden need to hide a body, much to her chagrin. No doubt trouble with Myranda Royce was a matter much less clean.  
  
“Shall I guess?” Arya asked, her mouth curling up at the edges.  
  
“You wouldn’t be able to in a hundred years of guessing,” Jon said. His eyes glittered. “She decided that after being denied her chance to net herself the heir of the Eyrie, she would take after the next best thing. So says the chambermaid who found her naked in my bed when she went in to lay the fire.”  
  
The rum was not enough. It was a horrible move, a whorish move, and a move that _worked_. Arya choked on air and demanded between two harsh coughs, “They cannot say—”  
  
“Drink,” Jon urged her, as pleased with himself as any mouse-catching cat as he sprawled in his chair.  
  
If Lord Royce was trying to rush Jon off to the Sept then Jon would hardly be here plying Arya with terrible liquor. She turned her furious frown to her cup and drank as she was bid.  
  
“And,” Jon went on as she licked a drop of rum off her lip, his smirk eating up his face, “so says the stablehand she brought to amuse herself with until I took myself to bed.”  
  
“No!” Arya gasped, a reflex. The shamelessness of it—  
  
The absurdity—  
  
“Oh yes,” Jon assured her. He rocked his chair back on two legs, smug and pleased with her wide-eyed look. “A bastard himself, apparently. And he knew exactly what he’d caught up himself with that maid as witness and so hied off to the lord of the keep with that poor girl before anyone could say ought.”  
  
Arya wasn’t that well on her way to drunk but the laughter was still sweeter and easier coming up than any rum could be going down. “Oh gods,” she said and wiped at her eyes, her whole face hot with laughing. “Oh gods, and what did Lord Royce want you to do about it? Find another place to sleep?”  
  
“He wanted me to marry his daughter and spare her the shame. As I am the bastard son of a high-born whore myself, I would understand better the tribulations his daughter will find herself facing.”  
  
Arya decided she had been patient enough with Lord Royce. Tolerating his comments towards her was one thing; Lyanna Stark, as poor as her choices had been, was beyond reproach. “I’m going to put something in his drink for that,” she said. “Hmm, what do you think of him shitting his breeches at the high table?”  
  
“I think it fitting,” Jon said and kept his eyes on her over the rim of his cup as he drank. “Since I am not allowed to throw him down a mountainside.”  
  
Arya sniggered, hiding it in her fist. Her cheeks were hot. “Out with it,” she said. “Surely the discussion didn’t end there, seeing as I am not currently attending you and your new queen in whatever shack they have passing for a sept.”  
  
“He seemed determined I help,” Jon said. His arm flexed as he dragged a hand through his hair. “Apparently visiting kings are known to drive maidens to madness. So I told him I understood all too well and would be honored to help the lad pay the bride price for her.”  
  
Arya could live for a hundred years on the expression Jon wore if she could get her mouth on it; there was something that made her burn up in how he looked at her then, the mean satisfied edge of his smile, his teeth. She wanted to lick all over that smile, a strange and dreamy wolf instinct still clinging to her even when she was awake.  
  
She could eat him, she really could; she could climb into his lap and refuse to leave it until _they_ were forced with indignation into the nearest Sept. She was, Arya started to suspect, getting drunk. Less rum, she thought and gave her cup a glare. Rum that shitty shouldn’t be allowed to be so strong.  
  
Jon was staring at her when she looked up again, a warm slow sweep of his eyes that made her tingle down to her toes.  
  
You are drunk, she told herself sternly. Do not say something stupid.  
  
“To Myranda Royce,” she said instead to break the thick silence between them. She raised her cup in a mocking salute. “May she be satisfied with her new lots in life.”  
  
“Better,” Jon drawled as he toasted with her, “him than me.”  
  
Jon would never be satisfied with a lady like Myranda, Arya thought. Some fat flirting thing bobbing around the king. It would have been inexcusably rude of Arya to scratch her face off at the table, so she hadn’t. But now that she was wed in disgrace, Arya hoped the lady would have the sense to leave Jon well enough alone.  
  
He was still staring at her. He did that, sometimes. Looked at her. Arya glanced out the windows again, hoping frantically he hadn’t read the ugly thought off her face. Gods and no wonder Jon was inundated with maids seeking marriage, the way he just sat there legs spread wide in his chair like the world’s best feast.  
  
Jon didn’t want a bride. He wasn’t, as Arya had once wondered, a lover of men. He had laughed the last time she had gotten drunk because she had asked him that. It made it almost worse that he refused to marry anyone. Made it worse for Arya that she couldn’t seem to look past him to find a husband of her own.  
  
She couldn’t say she minded the staring. It used to make her hopeful how he kept his eyes on her in the yard, in the hall, over the rim of his cup as she sprawled across his hearth rug in her nightgown. But all Jon ever did was look. So probably it was only satisfaction that she was there and not wedded off to some Frey boy and sent away from the North.  
  
This was why she didn’t drink. It always made her maudlin or weepy or hot and slick between her legs. This was easier to hide than crying; he couldn’t notice how she pressed her thighs together, hidden as they were under all the petticoats and underskirts.  
  
Arya set aside her cup on the dressing table and turned to the heavy silvered mirror. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide and dark. She scowled at herself and started to yank pins out of her hair. They could finish this cup and then she would shoo Jon away and crash into the bed, ridiculous dress and all.  
  
“Don’t you have a girl to help you with that?” Jon asked as the pins fell, one two three, in ringing little crashes into the glass bowl for them.  
  
“Two of them,” Arya admitted as the coiled braid fell to her shoulder and she fumbled to rake it out. “And last I saw, both of them were drunk as anything at the feast. No, I am thoroughly alone tonight.”  
  
“Shame,” Jon said. When she glanced at him in the mirror he was hiding that knife-sharp smile with the brim of his cup.  
  
“'Tis,” Arya said. She licked at her lip, considering the low neckline of the idiotic dress and her own flushed chest, and added dryly, “Seeing as I shall have to cut myself out of this gown or else sleep in it tonight.”  
  
Jon made a low noise in his throat. She glanced at him in the mirror; his smile was gone and he was leaning forward in his chair, his knuckles white around his cup.  
  
“I know, I know,” Arya laughed. “Not the dress! But there’s about two hundred pearl buttons down my back, each of them as fine as a kernel of wheat, and well beyond my grasp even before your rum. But I don’t much like the damn thing, so I cannot say I’ll miss it if it meets some tragic fate with my dagger.”  
  
Jon cleared his throat. “I’d say it has its charms.” He rocked his chair back again to another chorus of creaks. “Was Sansa wroth when she set orders for your clothes? Usually your things suit you ill when she does that, not flatter you half so well as your gown does.”  
  
The jewels in Arya’s ears came out next. “No,” she said absentmindedly, fighting with the catch of one. She couldn’t quite get the loop of it— “It was a gift. Some stupid lordling, no doubt panting in his bath at the thought of undoing all those buttons for me.”  
  
Something banged behind her. She turned her head to look in the mirror, still trying to work apart the little silver clasp, and snorted. Jon had knocked over the flagon with his elbow and was straightening it hurriedly, his smile wilting.  
  
She giggled. “Not the rum!” she said, pretending at being all breathy and panicked about it.  
  
But Jon didn’t laugh back. All the humor was chased off his face and his eyes narrowed as he looked her over. No, Arya thought even as she flushed, as he looked the dress over from the line of lace clinging well under her bare shoulders to the hems of the skirts heaped up near her ankles.  
  
“Some lord has been sending you dresses,” he said, low and smoothly dark. The precursor to a poor mood, Arya thought. A quick rage or thorough sulk. “Sent you _that_ dress? And you wore it.”  
  
Usually she could tease Jon out of his moods before they went on building but she was drunk and warm and wanted his eyes on her like this, burning hot and all proprietary. She pressed her thighs together again and returned her attention to herself in the mirror.  
  
“Aye, dresses and jewels and ribbons and lace and all sorts of idiotic things,” she said lightly. She hadn’t thought about it all evening, besides an eye roll as the giggling maid laid it out next to the dress, but the thought of the other gift she was wearing made her snicker.  
  
The catch finally came free and she dropped the earring away with a sigh. “Apparently it’s bad form for Southron men to send away proposals without some sort of gift. Though,” she added, heart beating harder and the hairs on the back of her neck rising, “the things I’ve been getting are _much_ nicer than the ones Sansa got.”  
  
“Proposals,” Jon said through his teeth, “should go to the lord of your house.”  
  
“They couldn’t help themselves, they all said. Seeing as I’m quite a Northron beauty and a fiend with a sword and mysterious as any masked mummer.”  
  
Arya considered the missive that had come with the dress, a letter salacious enough to scandalize any lady of good repute, and added thoughtfully, “And besides, better if Bran doesn’t read these letters, I think.”  
  
As if some spoiled lordling who thought she was mad for ridiculous dresses would have any idea what to do with her and the _gifts_ he had sent her. She giggled at the thought, warm all over and deliciously aware of the thunderous silence behind her.  
  
Rum was good and speaking with Jon was good and she was going to have to send him away very soon, before she said something stupid and soppy or tried to shove his hand between her legs.  
  
“Anyways,” she went on, “the dress suits me little but it was fine enough for any Southron feast, heaps of tiny buttons aside, so here I am faced with murdering the thing or waiting until dawn when the ash girl comes and admitting to her I cannot get myself out of it.”  
  
The last of her jewels was the necklace, heavy silver dripping down her chest. Another gift, thought it had come letterless and tucked inside her jewelry box as if it had always been there. She reached behind herself, carded away the loose mass of her hair, and undid the clasp.  
  
“Give it to her,” Jon said suddenly, low and imperious.  
  
Arya’s fingers fumbled and she swore, the necklace slipping out of her fingers and sliding down into her dress.  
  
“Oh, damn,” she hissed and pushed the neck of the dress down further, trying to fish it out. Cool metal pressed against the pale skin between her breasts and pooled down her belly.  
  
“Arya,” Jon said, his voice tight.  
  
“Pardons?” she asked, blinking up at him in the mirror. He was clenching his jaw, his eyes narrowed as he met her gaze; he looked furious.  
  
“The gown.” His words were deeper now, his whole body stiff with displeasure. “Give it to the ash girl if she helps you out of it.”  
  
“A queenly gift,” Arya said and snorted. “I know you don’t know much about dressmaking, and I’ll admit that I don’t either, but according to Sansa this damn thing has got about a mile of Myrish lace all over it. I cannot imagine what an ash girl would do with that.”  
  
“An inappropriate gift,” Jon corrected harshly. His jaw ticked. “A stranger sending you _letters_ and dresses? You know you should not have kept it at all, much less worn it.”  
  
“Pardons,” Arya shot back. “I didn’t realize it was in the king’s duties to decide my wardrobe and tell me which pieces suit and not.”  
  
“Aye, well it’s the king’s duties to keep you from getting yourself married away!” Jon barked. “You wear a lord’s gift in front of him and he will take it as a sign of favor that you’ll actually wed him!”  
  
“I wear all sorts of gifts,” Arya said and fished for her necklace again. She hooked just the tip of her finger under the thick silver chain and started to pull it free, the cold metal scraping across her hot skin. “Some of them,” she said as she watched Jon watch her hands in the mirror, “you even gave me, and _you’re_ hardly going to wed me.”  
  
“Besides,” she said as she looked at herself, at the red-cheeked dark-eyed girl in the mirror who had her hand down her dress and her breasts exposed almost to her nipples, “none of the men in the hall seemed to mind me wearing it. I think they found it very fetching.”  
  
The girl in the mirror was impressed with Arya’s brazenness. Arya pulled her necklace free and set it aside, picked up her cup of rum to toast the girl in the mirror, and drank down the last of it.  
  
Jon made a low, hoarse noise. Instinct had her stilling and flicking her eyes to his reflection, her heart rabbiting away in her chest. He looked like someone had slapped him, his mouth soft and confused and almost wounded.  
  
It was unfair that he was so handsome even when he was furious and flushed with rage. It was unfair he didn’t want her back, Arya thought. It wasn’t Jon’s fault she loved him wrong but she wasn’t going to sit there and let him say no one else was allowed to love her right either.  
  
“It’s a gown, not a declaration of marriage,” she said coolly and stood. She turned to face him, her petticoats weighing her down and lending her a sense of regality she never felt with Jon. “And I burned the letter that came with it so unless some idiot lord wants to admit to being scorned by a princess no one shall know unless I tell them myself.”  
  
The thought crept it and spilled out of her mouth before she could stop it. “About the dress or the other thing,” she said and slapped a hand to her mouth to smother the giggle.  
  
Jon stood as well, breathing hard through his nose. “What other thing,” he demanded. His eyes were glittering, his mouth a sullen curve.  
  
“Mm,” Arya said. She’d take the words back if she could; it almost wasn’t fun to rile him anymore. “’Tis not a polite topic of conversation.” She shrugged, a slow liquid roll of her shoulders that tried to cast off the gathering tension she felt there.  
  
Gods help her, she liked him like this far too much, liked him angry and possessive over her. Arya wanted to shove Jon onto the bed and crawl over his hips; she really did want to lick his teeth.  
  
The air was heavy between them. This was why she didn’t drink; the temptation was too great to keep Jon looking at her and only her, keep all thoughts of other girls he wouldn’t marry out of his head.  
  
“You tell no one,” Arya said, “and I shall do the same and my dress may remain unassailed by petty rumor.”  
  
He clenched his hand tightly at his side. Good instinct urged her to roll over and show him her belly; the rum made it seem a grand idea to start by tugging the neck of her gown down further.  
  
“The hour is late and you still needs find a bed to sleep in,” she said. “You ought to see the castellan before he retires for the night.”  
  
Jon said nothing, only glared at her. The back of Arya’s neck was hot. She added slowly, “And thank you for the rum.”  
  
Finally he moved to crossed the room to her. Arya put her face up for her goodnight kiss but Jon didn’t press his lips to her forehead as he always did. Instead he took her by the shoulder, a hot press of his bare palm to her uncovered skin, and turned her firmly until he had her back to him.  
  
This was more dangerous than anything else she’d done that night. “You needn’t,” Arya rushed to say. “The ash girl can—”  
  
His dagger made a small sound, a thin sigh of steel against the leather of his scabbard as Jon drew it free.  
  
Arya was made of good instinct, the plain sense all animals had. It kept her small and still where she was as he breathed out against the back of her neck, humid on the knobs of her spine. She hunched her shoulders in and held her breath, but not from fright. She wasn’t frightened even as she felt the flat of the blade press cold against the nape of her neck. She wanted to arch herself and press against it.  
  
Arya shivered as he held it more firmly to her skin. She liked that, the cold threat Jon gave her, the wolfish way he showed her his teeth when he saw her watching him in the mirror, the showy deliberate way he grabbed at her waist with his other hand to keep her in place.  
  
Jon rasped in a breath of his own. “You don’t care for this dress,” he said in her ear, a barely hidden question.  
  
The knife, so delicious on her neck! And his fingers, so hot and mean through the thin silk. Arya shook her head slowly, a single turn of it, and gasped as she felt blade drag down, felt the sudden pressure of the dress pulled tight to her body as he cut down through the entire back of it from her shoulders to the curve of her ass.  
  
It wasn’t the sort of gown one wore over a shift or a bodice. When the weight of its underskirts dragged the whole thing off herself, she was left bare but for the sheer smallclothes still tied precariously at her hips.  
  
The girl in the mirror had eyes big enough they threatened to swallow her whole face. She shivered from the touch of the air and from the sight of the man’s broad shoulders framing her bare skin.  
  
Arya looked at Jon and he looked back.  
  
His eyes were almost black as he slipped his knife back away and put his other hand on her waist. It was big and heavy, his skin dark from the sun. His fingers were a lush spot of color on the pale skin over her ribs. And then he followed his hand with his eyes and Arya got to see the exact moment he realized her smallclothes were made of the same pale silk and matching edges of lace.  
  
“Oh gods,” she said, giggling a little nervously as he sucked in his breath, “how much rum did you have?”  
  
Jon didn’t say anything, just slid his hand from her ribs to cup the curve of her hip. He stroked over the line of bone under her skin. They made a pretty picture together, Arya thought wildly. The couple in the mirror looked just like the sort of painting that got sold on street corners in Lys.  
  
She was wet already, hot from his staring and dripping almost from the moment he set his knife on her neck. It didn’t help at all as Jon slid the pads of his fingers under the soft line of her smallclothes to touch the sensitive skin there and then took them away again to roll the delicate ribbon of the tie between his fingers.  
  
It didn’t help that he could see how wet she was, the cloth turned two shades darker where it tucked between her thighs.  
  
“You’re giving the dress to the ash girl,” Jon said instead of answering her. “And I’m burning these,” he went on, low and dark as he tugged the tie free of the sloppy knot and the little scrap of silk and lace slid down Arya’s legs.  
  
She felt his lips moving hot on the webbing between her shoulder and neck as he bent his head and kissed her there, but he didn’t do it fast enough to hide the sharp edge of his smile, the way his cheek curved as he nipped at her. Her heart hammered in her chest.  
  
Arya didn’t want him smiling. She wanted him just as hot and confused and aching as she was. She licked her lips. Rum was good. Rum helped her say it even as she flushed hot enough to burn at her own brazenness.  
  
“But I did like _those_!”  
  
Jon yanked her back fully against him until they were pressed chest to back. His hands were tight on her skin and she was glad of it because it felt like she was about to explode out of herself at any moment. The rich wool of Jon’s tunic scraped against the thin skin of her back and her nipples were almost painfully hard with the sensation. She wanted to rub against him like a cat.  
  
She squirmed, panting softly, and froze. He was hard against her, his cock thick and heavy against the dip of her back. She moved her hips a little, an instinctive twitch into him, and he grunted in her ear. And then he picked her up out of the mess he’d made, crumpled skirts and ruined bodice and tiny scattered buttons like stars through it all, and he threw her onto the bed.  
  
Arya sank into the mattresses with a shriek of surprise and scrambled to sit up again, throwing her hair off her eyes. “I drank as much rum as you,” Jon said as he jerked at the ties of his tunic and tossed it aside. His shirt under it was fine enough to be sheer; she could see the muscles of his chest move in an interesting way as he tore it off and set it flying.  
  
He was thick with muscle all over, lean dangerous lines of them, and that was why he was so good with his sword, Arya thought. Gods but that was why he stalked around like the most dangerous animal in the world. She stared at the bulges of his biceps and the definition of his lower arms as he worked at his sword belt, pressing her legs together to soothe the ache between them.  
  
“And I hold my drink better,” Jon said as he knelt to undo his boots. She made a confused noise. He looked up at her through the fringe of his hair and said roughly, “So not the rum, thanks. Could be I’m just tired of you being a cocktease.”  
  
“A cocktease!” Arya squawked, outraged. She tucked her fingers over her cunt, just cupping the wet split of herself to ease the throb.  
  
“When we get back to Winterfell,” Jon said as if she hadn’t spoken, the corner of his mouth quirking up, “you’re going through your clothes and giving away everything another man has ever sent to you.”  
  
She could feel her heartbeat in her fingertips, her neck, her clit. Arya pushed her fingers against it, a motion almost too wet to feel the friction from the touch, and had to stop to catch her breath. She whined, low in her throat, and huffed, “But those are my nice things!”  
  
“Aye?” Jon asked. He was working at the laces on his breeches now, the muscles in his arms thick as anything. He paused to look up with that smile, the smile that made her mad for him, all teeth and smugness and careless possessive charm. “Strange,” he said. “I don’t actually give a shit about that.”  
  
And then he was shoving his breeches off and she was going to bite him, she was. She was going to put her teeth all the shadowed ridges of muscle on his belly leading down to his cock. And she made a little noise as she looked lower, unable to help it. His cock itself was prettier than any picture, thick and hard and red against his stomach.  
  
He gave her a moment to look, breathing hard like he was in the middle of a fight but as still as any stone.  
  
Arya stroked herself again, fingers fumbling. Sopping wet and richly hot as she dipped them inside herself, two and a delicious smooth slide as she pushed them in. Fair was fair. So when his eyes went to the movement of her wrist, she spread her legs wider and moaned like all the whores did, like it was the best thing she had ever felt, like she was dying from it.  
  
There was a strange fractured moment, one where she was definitely alone on the bed, then one where he was on her, swearing at her “Fucking tease,” as he took her fingers away from herself. She whined with annoyance as he pulled her wrists up to rest above her head.  
  
“You want a pretty gown to flounce around in?” Jon asked, holding himself above her, too far away to touch as she arched herself up. He sounded hoarse; he sounded like he was about to kill someone. “Want something lacy to wear under your skirts?”  
  
Arya tried to rub on him, tried to squirm down against the leg he nudged between her thighs, but he held it just out of her reach. He gave her wrists a hard squeeze, bordering just on the edge of pain and it made her hotter. Both arms in one of his big hands and the bones grating.  
  
He was so strong. He could break them if he wanted to, all he’d have to do was squeeze tighter. It made her wild with wanting; she could scream from it.  
  
“Yes,” Arya panted. She wanted him to touch her. Her skin felt like a hot coal all over. She would have agreed to anything.  
  
“Then you’ll ask me and _I’ll_ give you something,” Jon said and dipped his head to kiss her. She turned her face up eagerly and he pulled away before their lips could touch, just breathing out with his mouth above hers, the air between them burning. “I’ll give you what you want,” Jon muttered and his eyes were wild.  
  
And then he ducked his head down all the way and kissed her.  
  
He tasted like rum and like blood rushing under petal-thin skin. Arya licked all over his teeth, finally, and sucked his lip. Opened her mouth so he could put his tongue in, a thick delicious slide against hers like a mockery of what she really wanted.  
  
She turned her face away, panting. Pouting. “Be nice to me,” she huffed and squeaked like a mouse when he shoved his thigh up firmly between hers.  
  
“I always am,” Jon said. His mouth was swollen up red as blood. “My lady,” he said and nuzzled his mouth against her jaw then followed it with a slow scrape of his teeth. “Gods. I am,” he said hotly to her sensitive skin, “even when you don’t deserve it.”  
  
Arya had to look away from him, flushing across her whole body. Her hips rolled, chasing the shower of sparks that fell down her spine when she rubbed on him.  
  
He let her rock down, just watching her. That was better. That was nice. She squeezed her eyes shut and worked her hips down against his leg, exquisite pressure where she wanted it the most and she was getting his leg obscenely wet, she was making slick noises doing it, and she flushed hotter for hearing herself but didn’t stop.  
  
Gods, rum. Better than anything except this. She didn’t hesitate at all when she said, high and plaintive, “Kiss my, gods, kiss my tits.”  
  
He took his hand off her wrists and slid himself down. She kicked out a leg at the loss of the pressure he’d been giving her and then cried out. He bit, gods his teeth dug into the underside of her breast. That was _better_ , that was so good.  
  
Jon panted against her chest, hot and humid. “Thought about this all night,” he said, “putting my mouth on your tits,” and licked at her nipple. She twisted under him, shoving her hands into his hair, and tried to hold his mouth in place. He took her nipple into his mouth.  
  
“Yes,” Arya said desperately. “Yes, please!”  
  
He sucked and she bit her lip bloody to keep from howling. She thought tits were useless, always hurting when her flower was on her and getting in the way when she learned to use the bow and making men stare rudely when she was trying to talk.  
  
They weren’t. Gods but they weren’t. Jon took his mouth away and licked her other breast, laving his tongue over all of it. She squirmed under him, his hand hard on her ribs to keep her from shoving away from him, keep her from arching her chest into his mouth. When he sucked a mark into the side, it hurt so badly she thought she would die.  
  
She made a sound like she was being whipped. And then he took his mouth away and it kept hurting, bruise deep and delicious.  
  
“You kill me,” Jon said, mouth to her collarbone. She wanted him to bite there too, where her bone was so close under the skin it would ache for weeks afterwards. “Gods you kill me,” he said tenderly.  
  
His cock was hard against her leg. Jon’s mouth was nice but he wasn’t going anything with his cock. She grabbed big fistfuls of his hair and dragged his head back up.  
  
“Jon,” she panted, staring right into his eyes, “I need you to— you must listen.”  
  
“Aye,” he said gravelly and low and thick. The muscles all through his shoulders and chest distracted her for a moment as he shifted above her. Arya grabbed hold of his bicep, squeezing, but managed to keep the thought from disappearing right out of her head.  
  
“Listen,” she hissed, a fierce little scold. “Forget everything else. Forget it.”  
  
“Aye,” Jon said again, his mouth still a little open. He looked focused, all of him drawn tense as a bowstring, the look he wore when he was fighting, when he was watching her. Arya had to take a moment to put her mouth over it and eat it right off his face.  
  
Good, it was good. She pulled away again, squirming under him, and asked, gasping, “Did you forget it?”  
  
“Mad,” Jon told her. He was starting to smile now. “You’re mad. Driving me mad.”  
  
“Good,” Arya said. “Gods, good. Listen, this is important.” She gave him a little shake and he snorted, grinning down at her so hard his eyes crinkled up.  
  
“Put,” she said, the words a scandal even in her mouth, but she had to say them. Had to make him understand. “Your cock. Put your cock in me.”  
  
He laughed. Laughed! Like it was a game and she wasn’t lying under him dying from want of it. “Horrible,” she groaned around him kissing her and pulled at his hair. “Horrible man. Put it in me before I die.”  
  
His whole body shook when he laughed that hard. Fine, alright. If words couldn’t make him understand—  
  
Arya took his hand off her ribs and shoved it between her legs, where she was wet as anything. Two seconds and she was soaking up his fingers, slick all over him and her own fingers wet where she held him to her. She slammed her head back, making a noise through her teeth as he pulled his hand out of hers gently and rubbed her hard at the top, just where she was so swollen it hurt.  
  
His callouses scraped over her perfect, just right, as she moaned. She couldn’t think. A high frantic noise shot out of her throat. Gods, maybe the whores weren’t pretending when they made that sound.  
  
“Fuck,” Jon said, rigid above her. His cock twitched against her leg and his hips worked for a moment. He rubbed against her like his cock wanted to be deep in her just as much as she wanted him to shove it inside.  
  
And then he was pulled away and kneeling between her legs. He took his cock in his hand, the tip dark and fat and wet as he fucked into his fist, and she cried, outraged, kicking at his thigh, “I could be doing that. I could be doing better than that!”  
  
“You’re always so bossy,” Jon said and he let go of himself to grab her hard by her hips. “Always trying to order me around,” he muttered and jerked her closer. She squealed to feel the wet bedclothes under the small of her back. Jon was tucking her against him, her hips tilted up and resting on his lap, and then he rubbed the tip of himself through her and she moaned, startled.  
  
Hotter than her fingers, than his. She crooked her leg around his waist and urged him with a heel to his back. “In,” she said, panting. “In, gods please.”  
  
His face was agonized. “Fingers,” he said at her like it hurt to tear any other thought out of his head than _I want_. “Fuck you with my fingers first?”  
  
He rubbed the head of his cock against her clit again and it was just skin on skin, just like her fingers were skin on skin when she touched herself but this was so much better. How, how was it better? She grit her teeth, squirming closer. She was dying, he was killing her.  
  
“Look at me,” she said, panting. Rum made her bold but apparently all Arya needed to say horrible terrible true thing was to have a cock working slickly against her, almost but not quite where she wanted it the most. Jon tore his eyes off her cunt and she clenched around nothing with how tense his whole face was as he licked his lips and nodded.  
  
“Listen, gods damn you,” she said and kicked his back. “Listen. I fucked myself this morning just laying in bed after dreaming about you. The night before too, and it wasn’t enough. Did it hard, gods, and I’m so wet now. Put your fucking cock in me.”  
  
He did. He put his arm around her waist, his hand under her hips to lift her a little, and then he shoved the head in. She cried out and he stopped moving. Just kept himself an inch inside, two, not enough to do more than keep her split open on it and drooling wet all around him. Arya clenched, flushed down her chest, red to her belly.  
  
“I can’t hurt you,” Jon said through grit teeth. “I cannot. Arya—”  
  
She loved him, so much. She was going to cut his throat.  
  
“It feels _good_ , stupid!” she cried, working her hips down on just that little length of him. “You could put your whole hand in me and it wouldn’t hurt, please!”  
  
He drove into her another inch, sweat all over his chest and his forehead, his hands hard on her hips. She wanted him to bruise her there, wanted the maids to see purple fingerprints all over her in the morning and break into whispers.  
  
“In,” she said, her hands twisted in her own hair, spine arched and muscles pulled tight. Her shoulder blades ground into the sheets; he was still holding her up, holding her against him. He rubbed against her just right every time she trembled. “Deeper, come _on_.”  
  
Jon panted down at her, black eyes and swollen mouth and a look on his face she had never seen before. And then he yanked her forward onto him fully and she made a noise she had never made in her life. Her mouth stayed open after, nothing else coming out, everything shoved out of her. He was so much bigger than her fingers, better than fucking herself with them; there were no words for it.  
  
“Aye,” Jon said, looking down at her. That smile; she could kill for it. “Aye, finally shut you up good,” he said, low and crooning. He pulled out barely an inch and shoved himself back into her hard.  
  
“I hate you,” Arya gasped, scraping her other foot on the bedcovers, trying to get enough leverage to fuck him back.  
  
He laughed and started to fuck her for true, hard shallow slams of his hips like he couldn’t bear to be all the way out of her again. It was good, Arya thought, and he was so thick, rubbing inside all of her. Gods but she could feel him in her belly, the tight muscles there trembling finely. She gasped, “I’ll kill you if you take it out of me,” and he grunted, and grabbed at her breast.  
  
“I’d let you,” Jon said and dug his thumb into the bruise he’d put on her. She shuddered, clenching around him so hard that pleasure fluttering inside her right next to pain, and whined, high and thin.  
  
It was almost too much, too much pleasure blossoming in each drop of her blood. This was what people fought over, what the bravos dueled for, just this. Every time he moved was slick and exquisite, so thick and deep, everything she had ever wanted.  
  
Arya moved against him. She rolled her body further against his, fighting for each motion with no leverage to be had and a despairing want clawing at her chest. She wanted him deep, wanted him faster as he bruised up her hipbones and slammed into her.  
  
Jon looked at her now like he could eat her, like he wanted to get his teeth in her and tug. Wolfish, gods, just like how she felt inside. It was too much to look at him staring at her. She shut her eyes and turned to press her cheek to the bedclothes.  
  
All the sensation was worse now, how deeply her heartbeat crashed between her legs. Arya put a hand to her clit and covered it protectively, not rubbing it but letting it rub on her fingers every time he drove into her.  
  
“It’s not fair,” she moaned over the _thud thud thud_ of her own heart trying to expire.  
  
Jon made a noise and put his hand to her ribs, slowing himself as he worked inside her. “What?” he said, voice thick. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“I have to keep living in my body after this,” Arya whined, eyes squeezed shut. All of her muscles were winding tighter and tighter, her belly and thighs almost like they were on the verge of cramping. “Gods, when we aren’t doing this,” she said and tugged at her hair. “How’m I supposed to—”  
  
He pinched her nipple. She jerked, eyes flying open, and Jon was staring down at her still, breathing hard, all his teeth out. “Use your hand,” he ordered. “You’ve unbearable, complaining while I fuck you. _Talking_ while I fuck you. Touch yourself and stop thinking so much.”  
  
He couldn’t just order her around. Arya opened her mouth and he fucked into her, a brutal slam that made her cry out. “Go on,” Jon said, that same tender voice it almost hurt her to hear, husky and warm.  
  
Arya stroked herself and dipped her fingers a little lower to feel the clinging curve of her cunt where he fucked into her. She touched the root of his cock, smearing more of her wetness on it, and Jon growled in his throat.  
  
“Aye,” he said, working into her. “Like that, now touch yourself like that.”  
  
It was good, too good. She panted into the bedclothes, strung tight and so close to it she could cry as she rubbed. Her clit was too tender to touch. She made short strokes around it, hiccuping when her fingers skid in the wetness, when Jon jostled her and she touched it for true.  
  
“How’re you going to live,” Jon said above her, dark and mean. “Like you don’t know. Don’t know I’ll fuck you all the time, any time you want it. Put your skirts up and get my hands on you.”  
  
She peaked. She went moaning and so tight around Jon that he grunted with. She was clenched so tight he could barely pull out of her to push back in. Gods, and the pleasure so thick in her that Arya shuddered and wilted all at once, her muscles useless.  
  
She could die of it, she really could.  
  
Jon was waiting hunched over her, his hips still. She could feel him trembling, the tiny shake of the arm he had braced under her hips. Arya laughed, feeling so good and sweet for him, and dug her heel into his back. “Now you,” she said and shoved her hair out of her eyes again. It left her fingertips wet with sweat; the bedsheets were going to be disgusting. “Gods,” she gasped, still shaking as she came down. “Now you.”  
  
He pulled out and she hummed, watching the muscles in his chest and his stomach as they moved. It didn’t feel as hot as before, as frantic. Just thick and delicious and good as Jon fucked her sharper and harder, not keeping that same rhythm as he had before when he wanted to please her.  
  
“Gods I’m so glad you didn’t marry Myranda fucking Royce tonight,” Arya said and Jon laughed, sudden and helpless. He stopped to brush his own curls away, his eyes bright as he looked down at her.  
  
Arya clenched again, on purpose, just to see what his face did. Just so she could see how he slammed his eyes shut and breathed hard through his nose. His whole body was still but she could feel how he wanted to tremble with tension. How Jon didn’t let himself, like even that tiny little motion would push him over.  
  
“You can spill in me,” Arya said, stretching her arms above her head until her whole back tugged into a hard arc. “I’ll hold you like that when you do,” she said and hummed in her throat.  
  
Jon opened his eyes to look at her again, sharp and glittering. She always liked it when he looked at her, even like this. He was telling her not to say things she didn’t mean, a single agonized look, but the tremble at the corner of his mouth told her he wanted her to mean it.  
  
Arya let go of the stretch and sank onto the sheets, sighed happily. “I’ll take a tea ’til we go home,” she said. “I’m not having my wedding in the Vale just because you fucked a babe into me.”  
  
Jon’s face went soft and confused for a bare moment, that same wounded curve of his mouth, and then his big eyes were full of sudden stupid hope. He pulled out of her carefully and Arya whined, “Come _back_ ,” but he only shook his head and slid her off his lap. The little ache in her belly and hips smoothed out and she reached for him.  
  
Jon crawled over her, kissing at her neck as he pushed her legs wider open with a hand and rubbed his cock against her again. He didn’t say anything to her about it; he didn’t need to because Arya knew already what his answer would be.  
  
“Lower,” she said helpfully as he dragged his cock between her legs. She put her arms around his shoulders and scratched her dull nails down his back.  
  
Jon snorted rudely and said, “I _know_ how to get my cock in, thanks. Gods, maybe I don’t want to marry you if you do this the whole time.”  
  
Arya giggled. He couldn’t keep a sour look on his face, not even a pretend one. She pulled his mouth back to hers, crooning into the kiss as he pushed inside again. This way was nice too, and easier for her to get her legs around his hips and fuck him back. And he liked that, liked her working herself onto him.  
  
Liked it so much. Jon’s back got tenser, tighter with each thrust, and Arya scrubbed her hands all over him, the wings of his shoulder blades, the dip of his spine between the thick muscles of his back. She said breathily, her lips to his ear, “You said you’d give me what I want. Come _on_ , come in me. I want it.”  
  
Jon’s breath stuttered. Arya clenched again as hard as she could, wanting to give him something tight, wanting him to feel her as he spilled, and he groaned into her neck. His hips made frantic with three jerky thrusts and then he dropped onto her, panting softly.  
  
He was heavy all collapsed on her, but not in a bad way. Arya rubbed his head, combing through his hair, and said thoughtfully, “We’re going to have to burn this sheet. I don’t think anyone could get the stains out.”  
  
Jon nodded against her. He ground his sweaty forehead against her shoulder then rubbed the scruff of his beard there until she was squealing and giggling and trying to shove him away.  
  
“You’re going to give me a rash!” she said, heaving at his shoulder. But she couldn’t be sour about that either; a thousand thousand birds were fluttering in her chest, and the silky brushes of their wings made Arya feel as light as air.  
  
Jon pulled back, grinning. His mouth was still swollen. “It’ll suit you better than that dress,” he said and kissed her.  
  
Arya sighed into it and sucked on his lip. It was nice. It was good. She wasn’t going to tell him the rest of her wardrobe was also made of ridiculous gifts. She’d never make it out of the Vale alive if they did it like that every night.  
  
Finally he pulled away and rolled off her. “Where’s your wash water?” he asked, running a hand over his face. He was still red but not out of breath anymore. Jon was too used to working his body hard, all of him a weapon even before adding in four feet of sharp Valyrian steel.  
  
“Behind the screen,” Arya said and put her hand between her legs the second he was gone. She felt around curiously. She was still swollen and sore in strange places but she thought that would ease. His seed was dripping out of her, awkward but not uncomfortable. She wiped at it and touched her finger and thumb together consideringly.  
  
He had spilled in her a lot, she thought as she wiped her hand on the sheets. But he had wanted it a lot. Gods but so much he’d literally cut her dress off of her to get it.  
  
Arya giggled and starfished out on the bed. “That was fun,” she said as Jon came back and pressed a damp rag to her hand.  
  
He watched while she cleaned herself, leaned with his arms crossed and his shoulder against one of the posts at the foot of the bed. Arya spread her thighs a little wider and brought a foot up to rest flat on the sheets to let him see how red she was between her legs as she mopped at herself. Teasing him.  
  
Jon snorted even as his ears went red. “I think you’re right about the sheet,” he said. “A lost cause.”  
  
And then he came around the side of the bed and tugged it out from under her, a sharp jerk that sent her rolling.  
  
“You ass!” Arya cried, sputtering, and threw the rag at him. It fell short; she had been aiming for his face and Jon kicked it out of the way as he bundled the sheet up and threw it towards the wall.  
  
“Aye?” he asked. He put his hands on his hips. “Seems to me I’m just giving you back a little of your own.”  
  
“Seems to me you already _did_ ,” Arya said, pushing herself up and glaring. “Considering how my gown isn’t even fit for the rag heap anymore.”  
  
Jon looked entirely too pleased. “Is that so,” he said, brows raised. “Shame, that.”  
  
“I should make you sleep in your own room,” Arya said sourly, kicking the rest of the sheets out from under herself. She squirmed under them and held them tight for a moment as Jon plucked at them.  
  
He snorted. “You love me too much,” he said and tried to tug the sheets out of her hand.  
  
Arya held them tighter and gave him an unimpressed look. ”Aye, alright,” Jon said, showing Arya his teeth. “Message received. The knifework is for special occasions only.”  
  
She let the sheets loose and said, “So is the _rum_.”  
  
“Oh?” Jon asked as he climbed under them. Arya cuddled up close to him, fussing for a moment. She dragged his arm around her waist when he didn’t move it fast enough, and sprawled against him happily.  
  
“Aye,” Arya said firmly and propped her chin up to look at him. “No liquoring me up every time you want me to say terrible things.”  
  
“Terrible things,” Jon said musingly into her hair. “Hmm, things like ‘kiss my tits’? Or things more like listing how you touch yourself when I’m not around?”  
  
“Don’t—” Arya said, almost breathless with the rush of embarrassment.  
  
He slid out from under her arm and rolled onto his side towards her, considering her and smiling that beautiful awful shit-eating smile. “Things like ‘spill in me’?” Jon said, just as red as her but grinning twice as hard.  
  
“I hate you,” Arya said fervently and shoved him back down to burrow into his side.  
  
“You love me,” Jon laughed, horrible as anything as he pawed at her hip and rubbed the dip of her waist. “You love me so much you’ll wed me—”  
  
“I love you a little,” Arya huffed and tucked her cheek to his heart. The bare scars on his skin were new and familiar and comforting all at once as she nuzzled them.  
  
Just the right amount of rum, she thought and hid her smile against his skin. Jon was warm all over, loose and relaxed, and she was warm all over and still a little drunk. It was better than any moment in her life, Arya thought happily. She yawned to the sound of his rumbling laugh and let her eyes slide shut, satisfied.  
  
“Little heart,” Jon said after a while and tugged on one of her curls. Arya had a sleepy moment wondering what he was talking about before she realized he meant _her_.  
  
That was sweet, Arya thought, and not nearly as bad as some of the things she’d heard lords call their wives. But she still had a sudden grim thought of someone hearing Jon say something so soppy and to her of all people. Her hand was already on his chest; she pinched the skin under his nipple.  
  
Jon yelped like a kicked dog. “Don’t call me that out of the bedchamber,” Arya mumbled into his shoulder.  
  
“You could’ve _asked_ ,” he said sulkily, but he kept petting her hair.  
  
“Mm,” Arya said and tucked herself closer.  
  
She was almost asleep when he said again, “Arya.”  
  
“Gods,” she groaned. She was comfortable, finally. She was sore. She was so tired she could die of it. “What? What do you want? Use your hand if it’s that bad and let me sleep.”  
  
Jon laughed. “No, I needs ask,” he said into her hair, his thumb working little circles into her skin. “I’m not like to get in a better mood than this. What _did_ Lord Royce say to you?”

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ It's just smut this time guys, because sometimes you've gotta step waaaay out of your comfort zone.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read! And an especial thanks to everyone who read this after reading/commenting on/kudosing/bookmarking _stone, leaves, fire_. Y'all really gave me the courage to overcome my embarrassment when writing this and then (oh God) posting it. <333333


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